


Illusionist: The Pack

by BellatrixTheStar



Series: Illusionist [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, Sisters, Telepathy, metavillains, rebel teens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26542327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellatrixTheStar/pseuds/BellatrixTheStar
Summary: Six months after the events of Klark Basics, Juliet is mostly recovered and going back to school. New friends, new dangers, new questions. Is doing the wrong this for the right reasons okay?
Series: Illusionist [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930084





	1. Death Light

**Author's Note:**

> So, I’m back! Just so you know, this is set right after season 5 (after Nora + Cicada etc) and I haven’t watched season 6 yet so I’m not quite sure how this would fit in but thought you guys’d appreciate the timeline heads up.

The warehouse was silent and damp, mould appearing in black splotches in the corners and crevasses. I hid silently behind a piece of rusty machinery, staring intently at an open space near the centre where the roof had fallen in.

A young man stood there, a deceptive calm freezing his face in an emotionless stillness. In his hands he held a bag that clinked softly as his hands trembled. Despite his frosty face, his knuckles were white as they clutched as it and his feet shuffled from side to side.

I took a breath, trying to quash the nervous feeling that had sprung up in my gut.

 _Should I be doing this? Cara said he was dangerous but refused to tell me why, apart from that he was a meta and to tell the Flash. I shouldn’t be here_.

But I couldn’t leave now. I had come to watch, and if I left now, the man might see me, and I would be in more danger than I was in already. Barry had been a little cagey about whether he’d show or not, so I’d come just in case someone needed to call 911. Okay, that wasn’t entirely accurate; the Flash said he’d look into it.

_If Aunty finds out, she’s going to be so mad._

I tried to ignore the thought, firmly telling myself,

_No, no-one is going to find out, so don’t think about it._

Suddenly, two girls and three guys walk into the abandoned space, chatting loudly as they waltzed right past my hiding spot without even a glance.

A blond girl looked up at the young man who had been waiting and shrieked, “Johnny! I missed you so much!” before launching herself in his direction with open arms.

He knocked them aside, face twisting with disgust. “Amber, I thought you were with someone else.”

Pouting in a childish fashion, Amber complained, “I _was_ , but that was before I knew you were okay. You wouldn’t hold that against me, would you?”

Hands on her hips, right beneath the hemline of her vibrant crop top, make-up caked face tilted to one side, she looked like the most manipulative girl I’d ever seen.

“It’s not like I was dead. But that would’ve been easier, right?” Johnny asked, “No, what I’m holding against you, _all_ of you, is how you stole five years of my life!”

“Stole?” Another guy confidently stepped forward, his black hair swept to one side, “We didn’t knock you into a coma. That was your own fault for drink-driving.”

“My own fault? My own fault?! You guys spiked my drink, then encouraged me to-” Johnny began, anger bringing a flush to his face.

“Oy, don’t pin it on us, mate.” A dark-skinned guy said, frowning in disapproval at his old friend, “I didn’t tell you to challenge me to a race. If you think about it, you were the one who almost _killed_ Amber and Owen. I thought we were here for some fun, not for you to yell at us for your mistakes.”

“You smashed into my car and put me in a coma!” Johnny roared, finally losing his patience, “And now you’re going to pay!”

_Where’s the Flash?_ I thought nervously, edging backwards. _I was just curious, but this could get really dangerous._

Abruptly, I had a truly horrible idea.

_If I read his mind, and then I’d know when the best time to run would be._

A dozen warnings and moral principles ran through my mind; “ _it’s not polite_ ”, “ _an invasion of privacy_ ”, “ _you hated these powers, don’t use them!_ ”. But I decided to ignore them. It wasn’t like this situation was much different from the one that had hospitalised me six months ago.

I closed my eyes briefly before slowly lowering my barriers. _There are seven minds in here. But which one is Johnny’s?_

“Pay? There’s five of us and one of you, don’t be an idiot.” The second girl came forward, all edges with her black leather jacket and dark eyeliner. Arms crossed with a confident stance she seemed to be the most reasonable of the group, but her thoughts were on a wild party scheduled for tonight.

 _Not her, move on._ I thought to myself and tried to focus on Johnny.

“ _I’ll beam Page last, see if her confidence finally cracks when all her ‘friends’ are down.”_

 _Bingo_ , I thought, but shivered at the tone of the thought. The hate and disgust felt ugly in my mind, and it made me want to puke. _This was a bad idea. This is why you hate your powers. This is why Cara asked the Flash, not you._

But I couldn’t stop now.

Then a sudden electric flash of red and the five young adults were gone.

“NO!” Exclaimed Johnny, red faced, and fists clenched.

_Thank goodness_ , I thought, relaxing a little.

The Flash appeared back in the room with a crackle of lightning.

“They deserve what I’m going to give them!” Johnny yelled at the scarlet speedster, “Don’t stand in the way of justice!”

“Justice? You call this justice?” Flash said incredulously, “If they wronged you, take them to court. This is just revenge.”

“ _He doesn’t understand, no one does! I need to beam him before he stops me-_ ” Johnny’s thoughts stabbed through my lowered barriers with such vehemence I winced. I was going to get a wicked headache after this.

Then I realised what was happening.

Johnny had grabbed something out of the bag and was moving to point it towards the Flash. An image appeared in my head – _a beam of light coming from a bulb before it shattered, the light shining on a crumpled woman,_ I somehow instinctively knew, in the way that Johnny did, that the light would inflict the same condition on the next person it shone on.

“FLASH!” I shouted, “Move! Don’t let the light hit you!”

The lightbulb, for that was what Johnny had grabbed, began to glow and he tossed it up in the air. The light shone down and missed the scarlet speedster by inches. Both heads turned towards my hiding spot.

_Great Caesar’s Ghost._

Fast as lightning, the Flash had me and set me outside with the fleeing group of Johnny’s old friends. Then he was gone again.

I felt guilty for taking him away from the fight, but relieved that he’d dodged the deadly beam light.

Then panic, starting as a small trickle of dread in the pit of my stomach, rose up inside me.

 _You’ve been caught now! They’ll tell Aunty Lin and she’ll be so mad and there isn’t an excuse and – and –_ I starved of my own mental onslaught with a deep breath.

Sighing, I turned from the warehouse and started trudging for the subway. Better meet Barry at S.T.A.R Labs or there’ll be more trouble.


	2. Lecture

It had been a while since I’d been to S.T.A.R Labs.

First, I’d been recovering in the hospital, then Cicada had started murdering metas and Caitlin had said it was too dangerous for me to be associated. After that, it just hadn’t come up until the other day when Cara had given me the message for the Flash.

I hopped off the train onto the platform and climbed the stairs to street level without a problem. Glancing at the fading sunlight, I hoped that I would get home soon before Aunty or Cara started to worry, though it was probably inevitable. They had become a little protective after the ‘you got shot’ thing and I normally wouldn’t mind, but sometimes it helped to have a little leeway with curfew.

I walked through the gate in the back fence and Cisco buzzed me up without problem. I knew they probably already knew about my involvement this evening because of the comms link in Barry’s ear, but I hoped they wouldn’t go too hard on me.

“Hey guys.” I said but was generally ignored as Cisco was speaking into the mic. Caitlin gave me a little smile though.

“So, I looked up this guy, and his friends are absolute jerks based on the police reports on the incident. Not that that gives him the right to photon blast them into oblivion, obviously.” Cisco said, rolling from screen to screen in his swivel chair.

I thought there should be _some_ justice for Johnny’s coma but agreed with Cisco on the whole. Blaming their comatose friend for having his drink spiked and agreeing to a car race was totally messed up though. Not that anything would be done, of course; the law would see them as the victims now.

“Wait. He’s calling himself ‘Deathlight’ now? How overdramatic can you get?!” Cisco exclaimed, glowering at the monitors in front of him.

“You’re just upset because you don’t like it when villains name themselves.” Iris smirked from beside him, tapping keys as she leaned in to give Barry more advice, “Can you get that bag of bulbs off him?”

I sat in the spinney office chair and swung my legs back and forth.

Before long Barry came back with the self-named Deathlight and put him in the pipeline.

“What were you thinking?!” He said, hood off, face a mask of worry and confusion, “Do you have any idea how much danger you were in? Why didn’t you trust me to handle it?”

I took a breath, then released it. “I don’t know. Sorry.” The best option right now was probably to keep my head down and ride it out.

Barry looked surprised how fast I backed down. Everyone had trickled out of the room except the two of us and Caitlin, but I didn’t look at her.

“I just want to know why. You must have had a good reason?” He asked, the force all but gone out of his voice.

“I don’t know,” I repeated, “I guess I was curious, and – I don’t know, I thought if something happened maybe I could help or something.”

“But you must’ve known you would be in danger?! Why would you just put yourself in danger unnecessarily?” He exclaimed, beginning to raise his voice again.

In all honesty, I had talked myself into coming. I’d told the truth when I said I was curious, but I’d psyched myself up, thinking maybe I didn’t want to go because I was scared. I wanted to be brave, but – but wasn’t coming the right thing? Without my warning, whatever had happened to that lady in Johnny’s mind might’ve happened to the Flash! So why was I just letting the Flash lecture me? Was I afraid of standing up to someone?

“I ended up helping you!” I said, getting a burst of adrenaline as I did. I was _not_ scared. I could stand up for myself and defend my actions! “Would you have realised what the lightbulbs did before you got hit without me?”

“Yes, but _you_ could have been seriously hurt! And while I got you to safety, Deathlight could’ve escaped!”

“But he didn’t! And I was fine!” I raised my voice, feeling strangely liberated in my anger.

“It might not - !” Barry stopped. “I can’t do this right now. I didn’t work with Nora and it won’t work with you. Just don’t – ” He stopped again, looking away. “Just don’t get yourself killed, okay?”

Caitlin drove me home in silence. It was a good thing I’d had the presence of mind to call Aunty Lin, or I would’ve been in for another lecture. My stomach tingled almost painfully, but I ignored it.

_I was right…wasn’t I?_


End file.
